Poverty, Household Size and Child Welfare in India

This study uses Indian unit record data from expenditure and employment surveys, in conjunction with State level indicators, to (a) investigate whether the backward classes and female headed households face higher poverty rates than others, and (b) examine the impact of poverty, along with a host of individual, family, socio economic and State characteristics, on child labour and child schooling. In studying (b), special attention is paid to the gender issue, and to the employment and schooling of children from the backward classes and female headed households. The richness of the data stems from the size of the sample, heterogeneity offered by variation in the State characteristics, and information on the employment and education of all the household members. Household poverty and membership of a backward class are found to provide major stimuli to a child taking up wage employment and dropping out of schooling. Rising education levels of the adult members act in exactly the opposite direction in discouraging child employment and encouraging child schooling. The logit regression results point to the positive role that the State governments can play in improving child welfare. The results, also, suggest that as society becomes unequal, child labour initially falls but, then, rises at higher levels of inequality. JEL Classification: C21, C25, D63, I32, I38, J20, 053.